Reihaneh Tabatabei

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New York, January 9, 2015--A new wave of arrests and prosecutions has been carried out by Iranian authorities in the past month, cementing the country's status as one of the world's leading jailers of journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Five years ago on Monday, CPJ announced that Iran had officially become the world's leading jailer of journalists in the world. The announcement came on the heels of an unprecedented crackdown on the press that began on June 12, 2009, the day of Iran's tumultuous presidential election that sparked a mass protest movement.

In the first few months of 2014, multiple journalists were arrested, interrogated, and prosecuted in Iran. Authorities pursued a revolving-door policy in imprisoning journalists, freeing some detainees on short-term furloughs even as they make new arrests.

In late January, Iranian authorities waged the largest crackdown
on the press since 2009, detaining a wave of journalists and issuing arrest
warrants for numerous others. The Ministry of Intelligence accused
the journalists of conspiring with foreign media to repeat the alleged
"sedition" of 2009, referring to electoral fraud exposed by the media
and the protests that followed. In response to the arrests, IranWire, a project
led by our colleague Maziar
Bahari, produced this video calling for the journalists' release.

Iran has maintained a revolving-door policy for imprisoning
journalists, freeing some detainees on furloughs even as new arrests are made.
In its December 2012 prison
census, CPJ found that Iran was the world's second-worst jailer of
journalists, with 45 journalists imprisoned in reprisal for their work. The
threat of imprisonment has led scores of Iranian journalists to flee into exile in recent years.

New
York, January 28, 2013--At least 14 journalists affiliated with reformist news
outlets were arrested in Iran on Saturday and Sunday in the largest crackdown
on the press since 2009, according to news reports. The Committee to Protect
Journalists calls on Iranian authorities to immediately release all journalists
in custody and halt their practice of imprisoning critical journalists.